This is not very interesting music. While a fine finger-picking guitarist, Jon Mark is a lousy singer and inane lyricist. With the exception of a couple of brief jazz jams, the material is uniformly slow and draggy. Charles Mingus drummer Dannie Richmond's presence is invisible throughout much of this record. The bright spots here are provided primarily by Johnnie Almond's saxes and flutes, but Mark-Almond II is mostly one long snooze.
(by Jim Newsom, All Music Guide)
Mark Almond is at their best when they are playing either the melodic and harmonic acoustical tunes or the jazz-oriented fast moving jams. The other portion of their material tends to become slow, long-winded, floozy nightclub music. So the main problem with doing this review is the decision whether the good outweighs the bad or vice-versa.
An enterprising public relations man might have hyped this as a “concept” album. Side One is a collection of tunes with the common theme of the beauty of life up north termed The Sausalito Bay Suite. Side Two is the ever-popular “rock-star-away-from-home-and-getting-lonely theme termed Journey through New England.
The first cut is one of the acoustical numbers, “The Bridge,” done very effectively with a simple arrangement of 12-string guitar and the voice of Jon Mark with nice harmonies contributed by the rest of the group. The cut fades into a jazz interlude which is kept short so as not to lose the listener’s attention and then fades back in again to close out the tune.
The following two cuts suffer from the tremendous misconception on the group’s part as to what is effective. Certainly not twelve minutes of an electric piano and bass drooling behind a monotonous vocal interspersed with the accomplished yet sleep-inducing saxophone work of Johnnie Almond.
The first side’s final cut, “Friends,” is, just as the previous was Mark Almond’s worst, Mark Almond’s best.
The second side begins in a John Sebastian vein, with a uplifting theme and arrangement but doesn’t waste too much time before drifting back into the familiar trap in which they seem intent on proving their musical abilities one by one at the expense of the listener. They are tremendously talented musicians but should learn to conserve their talents and contribute them in small doses, in the manner of Traffic.
This album could be best described as a failure on the slow numbers, and a success on the low-keyed, up-tempo tunes. And all I can say after that is that the latter material is good enough to merit constant playing.
(Courtesy of the Door – Cameron Crowe - February 1972)
Plattentipp 
